Helping Our Aging Dogs | Steve Dale's Pet World

By Steve Dale, Tuesday at 6:29 am

If your dog is aging - that's good news, better than the alternative.

There's much we can for canine cognitive dysfunction. ?First is early recognition of the symptoms:

DISHA is the acronym for the five classic symptoms of canine cognitive dysfunction, which is like ?doggy Alzheimer?s disease?:

• D: Disorientation, such as dogs standing at the wrong side of a door to go outside, or generally seeming confused.??
• I: Altered social Interactions, such as dogs becoming disengaged or mysteriously aggressive toward previously favorite people or other animals.
• S: Sleep disturbances, such as getting up in the middle of the night. Older dogs naturally sleep more but this alludes to a change in the sleep cycle, perhaps awakening overnight, confused.
• H: House-soiling, previously housetrained dogs having accidents.
• A: Altered activity levels: No question, older dogs aren?t going to bounce around in play the way younger dogs do. Arthritis and other physical ailments may

I mention a product called Novifit in the video. There are many other products as well which may help owners to be proactive.

Helpful measures can include a prescription diet (Hill?s B/D), a drug called Anipryl, a SAMe-based (SAMe is a natural metabolite of the amino acid ?methionine, which is supposed to regulate mood and relieve depression by raising levels of specific brain chemicals) nutriceutical tablet called Novifit; Apoaequorin (jellyfish protein) and other products, all available through veterinarians. There?s dependable data to indicate these products really do help, at least in some cases. Also, consider pain relief (from osteoarthritis), which may be a contributing factor. ?Again, the secret is early diagnosis.

Filed under: dogs, old dogs, pets, veterinary health

Tags: Anipryl, Apoaequorin, canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome, DISHA, elderly pets, Novifit, old pets, SAMe pets, senior pets, Steve Dale archives

Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/steve-dales-pet-world/2013/03/helping-our-aging-dogs/

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